Posted on 04/15/2003 6:55:12 AM PDT by per loin
Excellent point, especially in light of Riri's post.
The virus is highly contagious and is spread by aerosol, direct contact, and fomites. No latent infection or carrier state occurs. The disease is not fatal, and is generally subclinical. The rats may exhibit a porphyrin oculonasal discharge. The submaxillary salivary gland may be palpably enlarged due to sialoadenitis. Dacryoadenitis may cause exophthalmos, which can lead to keratitis and corneal ulcers. Symptomatic rats are at a greater risk for inhalation anesthesia.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893236/posts?page=4#4
This is a highly contagious virus that can lead to deadly secondary infections. SDA itself does not kill rats. It does, however, destroy the rat's natural immunities for up to a week and allow secondary infections, such as mycoplasma pulmonis, to devastate entire colonies.
Doctors and nurses say the territory's health care system may collapse if more medical staff are infected. Health experts have said there are no longer enough intensive care beds nor isolation wards, sparking fears of more infections.
Most of the article quoted the current acting head of Hong Kong's medical system. (The actual head of the system is in the hospital with SARS.) It was unclear who the "doctors and nurses" quoted were, but the belief is widespread in Hong Kong that the system is near collapse.
At some point the quality of care will fall, raising the death rate. We may be at or near that point now (see the quote above).
If quarantine and isolation measures in the general community fail, the number of cases will rise dramatically. Since most patients thus far have needed hospitalization, and hospital stays seem to last for weeks even if ventilation is not required, many patients may find medical care is not available.
I don't know what happens then.
Incubation for SDA is normally 5 to 10 days. The two distinguishing symptoms of SDA are swollen lymph nodes, especially in the throat, and bulging and/or ulcerated eyes.
I wonder if incipient SARS in humans exhibits similar symptoms.
Strange...are there any photos of patients with SARS?
As per Mother Abigail some three weeks ago.
If you do determine that your rats have SDA, you also need to know that after all of the symptoms have disappeared, they can shed the virus for up to 4 months. That means that a complete quarantine needs to be done for 4 months after the end of all symptoms. No new rats in and no rats leave, along with no litters born. Even though the survivors will act perfectly normal after they finish showing all symptoms, they WILL still be shedding the virus. A complete and thorough quarantine is necessary to contain the virus and stop it from spreading.
Recommended treatment: There is actually no treatment for SDA because it is a virus. However, it is very important that you aggressively treat the secondary infections. You should treat every rat for severe respiratory infections as soon as you know that your colony has been exposed to SDA to prevent as many deaths as possible. A good choice for treatment is a combination of Enrofloxacin (Baytril) and Doxycycline.
This is going to require a contact list be generated for every SARS patient.
These must be tracked as well.
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